HELICOPTERS AND FLOWERS, by Shannon Bramer

I practice my killing on spiders

I practice holding my pencil and my gun better

When I have some paper

I don’t like to write

I like to draw pictures: helicopters and flowers

At night I fly out of bed

Into the shadows of men dancing together

I listen to soldiers play black guitars in the street

I know all the songs bad men love

Sometimes they play with me in the field

Sometimes they come to dance with my quiet sisters

I feel my hunger when the street is silent and there is no singing

I think that when there is music

no-one can stop me from dancing

Shannon Bramer's most recent book of poems is The Refrigerator Memory, published by Coach House Books in 2005. Her first play, Monarita, was produced in St.John's, Newfoundland in 2010 and has since appeared at festivals in Winnipeg, Halifax, Hamilton and Toronto.